


Ice

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note
Genre: Darkfic, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:16:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Near is sitting and wondering what it's like to feel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> The prompt was "poison."

Near is sitting at the table in the kitchen. There is a glass of milk between his hands, equidistant from either wrist, and he is staring at his forearms. His veins unfurl like violet trees beneath the thinnest film of ice.

Near is sitting and wondering what it's like to feel.

He has not reached any orderly conclusions before he hears the patting of feet—a faint sticking and un-sticking over the buzz of the light; these feet are bare, which is never true of his own—and then a pause in the pattern. It recommences after six seconds, and Mello steps over the threshold and onto the linoleum.

"What are you doing here?" he demands.

Near blinks, as though the ambient fluorescence hurts his eyes—which it does, a little, though not as much as sunlight.

"Sitting," he responds, hearing a faint grating in his throat, the hallmark of a voice not recently used.

Mello scowls, as if occupying space is a capital offense. "Well, I'm here for chocolate," he announces before Near can be bothered to ask, "so just don't talk, and we can both pretend we're alone."

Near blinks again, tilting his head a fraction. "Neither of us is alone. I don't see the point in playacting."

Mello turns sharply and stomps over to the counter, a hint of a flush climbing his neck past the swaying yellow hair. Near has never been able to figure out why his everyday logic always inspires Mello with anger.

The other boy climbs up onto the countertop and roots through the highest cabinet, where, as promised, he makes a selection from a stash of chocolate bars. Ungracefully, but with the kind of angular clumsiness that will smooth out and curl one day, Mello clambers down again, clutching his prize. He unwraps the foil, flinching at the sound of crinkling in the silence, and breaks off a greedy bite.

Then he notices Near's glass on the tabletop.

Near is frozen. Near is a statue; Near is a rock; Near is a figurehead who cannot speak.

Near's face hasn't changed. Mello knows nothing, knows of nothing amiss, knows only that he is reaching out for the glass that perches on the scarred table between Near's two unmoving arms.

Things are very slow for a moment, or else they are very fast.

Near's heart races precariously, pulsing in his chest, and his lungs don't work, and his breath goes stale, and the only thing _he_ knows is that Mello is not going to drink that milk.

His hands strike like white bullets, and it almost seems strange that the glass doesn't shatter. Pale liquid sloshes against the sides; Mello's fingers twitch in the empty air, and his eyes widen with a question Near doesn't want him to ask.

Near jerks himself out of the chair and crosses to the sink, where he upends the glass and watches all the milk gulp and dribble down the drain.

He rinses out the glass and slots it into the top shelf of the dishwasher, in between a blue mug and a green bowl.

He doesn't turn around.

"You're crazy," Mello says, and Near's spine feels like an icicle.

He turns now, but he doesn't look at Mello as he shuffles out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

The empty bottle of rat poison in his pocket knocks against his thigh with every step.


End file.
